Jersey’s links with India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations will be strengthened this month through the official launch of Jersey Finance’s representative offices in Abu Dhabi and Mumbai and the signing of a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with India.
A Jersey delegation consisting of States of Jersey Ministers, the Director-General of the Jersey Financial Services Commission and representatives of Jersey’s finance industry will travel to India for the launch on 15th March of Jersey Finance’s representative office in Mumbai.
The group will then head to Delhi to sign the TIEA with India on Friday 18th March, a move that will take the total number of similar agreements Jersey has signed to 21, with countries such as the USA, UK, France, Germany and China.
Following that, the Jersey delegation will travel to the UAE to mark the opening of Jersey Finance’s representative office in Abu Dhabi on Sunday 20th March with a reception at the British Embassy, hosted by the British Ambassador Dominic Jeremy OBE and officiated by HE Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Minister for Foreign Trade and a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, and Jersey’s Senator Philip Ozouf.
The two new offices will support the promotion of Jersey as an international finance centre in India and the GCC region and act as a hub for Jersey Finance to communicate the breadth and depth of its financial services. Both offices will be overseen by Sean Costello, Head of Jersey Finance’s Business Development in the GCC and India. In India, Sean will be supported by Business Development Representatives Kapil Dua, based in Delhi, and Jyoti Tathgur, based in Mumbai.
During the visits, Jersey delegates will also meet with a range of government and regulatory officials and business leaders. In India, Jersey delegates will emphasise Jersey’s strength as a centre for corporate banking, funds and wealth management work, and go on to explain the expertise Jersey has in corporate structuring, including the benefits of Jersey’s recently introduced Cross Border Mergers Law. Meanwhile, meetings in Abu Dhabi will focus on Jersey’s expanding range of Islamic financial services, including Islamic asset management and fund domiciliation, Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), Sukuk structures and Islamic private wealth management.
Sean Costello, Jersey Finance’s Head of Business Development for the GCC and India, says: “We are now seeing growing interest from GCC nations and India in the wider capabilities of Jersey’s finance industry. In the GCC, for example, there is greater appreciation that Jersey’s flexible legislation can be a natural choice for Islamic asset and wealth management, whilst in India, as well as seeing persistent interest in Jersey’s funds expertise, that is now extending to corporate and listings work – there are currently, for instance, 86 Jersey companies listed on worldwide exchanges with a market capitalisation of £16 billion. These are the kinds of messages we will be looking to communicate through our expanded global representative office network.”
